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goulets · 3 years

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Heartland

Chapter: 3/8 Pairing: Jason Todd/Dick Grayson Additional Characters: Bruce Wayne, Damian Wayne, Colin Wilkes, Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain, Barbara Gordon, Tim Drake, Duke Thomas Rating: T (for now) Case Fic / Kid Fic a03 link

The library has its benefits: no harassment from over-familiar family members, no Dick sexually frustrating him within an inch of his life, and, if he’s willing to be a little sentimental, he kind of does want to show it to the baby. She’s too young to appreciate it, probably, but it stirs something in him to share it with her all the same. He’s heard it’s never too early to get kids into reading - his parents sure as hell never tried, but Jason had read anything he could get his hands on, once he learned how. It had saved him, back then. Maybe it can do the same for her one day.

“Could’ve sworn Bruce had a Dr. Seuss anthology somewhere in here,” he says to her, combing over the shelves with his eyes. “Guess not. You up for something more sophisticated?”

She grunts, squeezing his shirt in her fist. “Alright,” he agrees, pulling Twelfth Night off the shelf. “Shakespeare it is. You’ve got taste, kid.”

***

(dick)

Venice is a nightclub that has gone by many names during its Gotham tenure, and just as many owners. Dick has been undercover here at least twice, back when the club was catering to the wealthier patrons of Little Italy. The current management clearly hasn’t bothered with maintaining that exclusivity - the building is now shabby and outdated, even for this neighborhood. One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is the real draw of Venice, which is the illegal casino in the back rooms beyond the VIP lounge. Through all the club’s owners, the casino has always been run by the Falcones, and always frequented by the city’s most morally flexible elected officials. In the past four nights that Dick’s been staking the place out, he’s seen five judges, two city council members, and even the new police commissioner slipping out the back door into the alley, stinking of gin and cigar smoke and patting their coat pockets with an air of satisfaction. It’s good intel to have, Barbara’s told him. Always helpful to keep the files updated on who’s being bought and by whom. None of that really makes him feel better about the fact that he’s been staking this place out for four nights and still hasn’t managed to pin down their actual target.

It’s embarrassing, is what it is. He’s Nightwing, for God’s sake. He’s taken down whole Russian mobs in Bludhaven, and now he’s being completely eluded by a third-string Falcone no one’s even heard of.

Oracle had ID’d the doer of the Torres/Howard murders in a matter of hours, true to her word, and the ballistics had predictably matched up with a few other murders that the police never bothered investigating. Susanna “Susie” Falcone, a second cousin once removed with a rap sheet that puts many of her relatives to shame. Her name must still have some pull in political circles, because she’s only done time once, in spite of being indicted almost a dozen times. Gotta love good old fashioned judicial corruption, Jason had said. No one had been able to argue, looking at the number of charges dismissed.

All in all, it was supposed to be a fairly simple tag-and-bag. Once they’d found her place of work - officially, the Venice nightclub, unofficially, the family casino - he’d been tasked to track her, question her, and then turn her in to the police. He’d chosen his stakeout perch well, on a hotel roof high above the alley, he’d followed her, unseen, and so far, she’s given him the slip every freaking time. The woman has vanished through every doorway from here to Robinson Park, as only the most enterprising criminal can. Were this a different kind of case, Dick might have been impressed.

Instead, he’s annoyed, and having to compromise - his vantage point is lower, closer but more exposed in the thin shadows of a third story construction platform right above the alley. He can see the door to the club without any difficulty, but the moment he moves, he’ll be open to attack.

He’ll just have to move fast. Fortunately, that’s what he’s best at.

There’s a soft motion behind him, almost quiet enough to escape his notice entirely. It’s Jason - Dick hadn’t expected him to actually turn up. No doubt he’s here to make sure they finally succeed in catching their mark tonight, but he’s been so adamant about not leaving Danielle with anyone except Dick that it’s still a surprise to see him. What’s equally surprising to Dick is that he was apparently hoping Jason would show, if the relief he feels at seeing him is anything to go by.

It’s a nice moment of solidarity, until Jason opens his mouth. “So, fourth night’s a charm, huh?”

Dick bristles. “What happened to not leaving the baby?” he retorts.

Jason bristles back, but doesn’t rise to the bait. It’s a little wrongfooting - a reminder that things are changing between them. Dick is used to the veneer of antagonism that hangs over his relationship with Jason, the unresolved tension they both pretend not to notice. They’d gotten into a pretty good groove when he was acting as Batman, staying out of each others’ way for the most part, and working together when necessary. Dick’s pretty sure Jason doesn’t actually harbor any murderous feelings towards him, just like he doesn’t actually hate Bruce, no matter what he says.

“The girls and Alfred ganged up on me,” Jason says, leaning back against the scaffolding. “Whatever. I needed to get the hell out of there anyways. I don’t know how you stand being around them all so much.”

Dick laughs. “They’re not as interested in me,” he admits. “I’m not the cool sibling.”

Jason doesn’t respond right away. It's hard for Dick to tell, when he’s wearing the helmet, but he thinks Jason is probably waiting to see if Dick is joking. It’s another way things have shifted between them - Jason’s holding back, not jumping straight to lashing out, like he used to. It should be a good thing - it is a good thing, but it’s throwing him off balance all the same. He feels like he's spent most of the past several days looking for Jason, even when Jason is right in front of him. He’s used to trying to find the Jason he knows - or knew - the Jason who was taken away from him. Now there’s a new Jason, a Jason he’s still getting to know. Dick can’t choose between them, can’t decide which one he wants to find every time he looks at him. Maybe that’s why he can’t seem to find his one lousy mafia shooter.

“Looks like the cops are covering up the ballistics report on Reynolds,” Jason says, after a moment. “Go figure.”

Dick frowns. “Just Reynolds?”

Jason grunts. “Hold on. What.”

Dick turns to look at him.

“Did you burp her?”

Oh, Dick realizes, he’s on the comm. Someone back at the Manor must have pinged him on a private line.

“Then get Alfred to do it.”

It’s curious that the ballistics on Cy Reynolds’ murder are the ones being suppressed, Dick thinks. He was the only one killed with a submachine gun - the bullets from most of the other crime scenes had come from a standard Beretta APX, and the object of his stakeout, Susie Falcone, had used a Glock on Danielle’s parents. The Glock matched a few other shootings, the Beretta matched none. None of that is particularly noteworthy - after all, Susie is a criminal, and Beretta shell casings are a dime a dozen at any mob shooting.

“Fine. I’ll check back in five. If you asswipes don’t pick up, I’m coming back there.” Jason makes an aggravated noise in the back of his throat, which Dick takes to mean he’s hung up.

“Everything OK?”

“Just peachy. By some cosmic fucking joke, I’m the only person in the family who can get the baby to take a damn bottle. I told her they just need to burp her, but I guess that’s too complicated a task for a family of genius detectives,” Jason grumbles. “I knew I shouldn’t have left her. Shit.”

“Jay, relax. She’s fine.” Dick can’t help but grin at him. It’s honestly sweet, the way Jason and the baby have gotten attached to each other. Dick likes to think he’s her second favorite, but it’s pretty hard to tell. No matter who’s holding her, she’s always looking at Jason, and Jason never stops looking at her.

“It’s fucking cold out here,” Jason says mulishly.

Dick raises an eyebrow. “I noticed. It’s April, not August. If you really want to go back, I’m not gonna stop you.”

“I don’t…” Jason sighs. “Look, I’m here, okay? You bungled this grade school op three nights in a row, so congrats, you triggered the bat buddy system. If I leave and you fuck it up again, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Dick supposes it’s his turn not to rise to the bait. “Fair enough,” he says easily, turning around to face the alleyway again. “What were you saying about the ballistics on Reynolds?”

“Oh, Oracle ran the bullets through Interpol. Turns out our ill-fated gang boss was offed by one of Carmine Falcone’s personal weapons. The record’s been scrubbed from US databases, but Babs had a hunch.” Jason sounds impressed.

“Been scrubbed meaning...there was a record,” Dick follows, “and some people might still remember, if they saw the bullets. Hence the coverup.”

“Yup. Hence the coverup.”

“Could explain what the commissioner was doing here the other night,” Dick muses.

Jason snorts derisively. “See, this is what I hate about the mafia. They’re so goddamn predictable. Kill the competition, pay off the cops, around and around forever. It’s so pedestrian.”

Dick laughs. “You’d rather deal with Clayface?”

“Fuck yes I would. Clayface has flair, you know? Anybody can be a mobster, shit.”

Jason has started shifting with agitation, or maybe impatience. Either way, their vantage spot isn’t hidden enough for him to be moving around. “Get low if you’re gonna be twitchy,” Dick tells him. “Or if you’re gonna have a cigarette, but I’d really rather you didn’t.”

“Lucky for you I quit then,” Jason says, crouching down next to him. “I’m not jonesing, I’m just fucking cold.”

“We could huddle together for warmth,” Dick jokes, grinning unabashedly when Jason’s helmet fixes him with a death glare. “Wait, you quit smoking? When?”

“When I started taking care of a baby, obviously.” Jason goes still, suddenly. “Is that her?”

The door to the alleyway opens, and they both tense - but it’s just a man, a bodyguard, by the looks of him. Close-cropped blonde hair, early 40s, used to throwing his weight around. Feeling there’s something familiar about him, Dick nudges Jason and motions for him to take a photo. Jason starts almost imperceptibly at the contact, but follows suit. They both hold perfectly still in the shadows as the man looks around, glances in a cursory way along the rooftops, and then sets off down the alley towards the street.

“I know him,” Jason mutters. “From Tim’s case files - he was with Intergang.”

Dick doesn’t say anything about Jason calling Tim by name, but it’s a welcome development. “Looks like he switched sides, if he’s hanging out here.”

“Wonderful,” Jason says. “All right, I’m gonna check on the kid again.”

Dick represses the urge to give him a shoulder squeeze, or ruffle his hair. It’d probably result in him getting shoved off the platform, but Jason’s being so....not different, because Dick’s always known that this Jason was still in him, somewhere. Always hoped, anyways. When Jason had been younger and acted like this, surly with his words but tender with his actions, Dick had always thought of him as cute. It’s like that now, too, except it’s not just cute, because Jason has several inches and at least two weight classes on him. It’s cute in a different way, an adult way. It’s cute in a way that makes Dick want to push harder against Jason’s armor, to catch as many glimpses of that side of him as he can. If he thinks about it too long, it’s cute in a way that makes him want, recklessly.

“Red Hood to Batgirl,” Jason says. He’s calling on the family line this time. “Give me an update.”

“You’re seriously a helicopter parent, you know that, Hood?” Steph laughs in Dick’s ear. “We figured it out. Well...Black Bat figured it out.”

Jason’s shoulders sag a little in relief. Cute, Dick thinks, involuntarily. He needs to get a grip. “About fucking time.”

“She prefers being propped up,” Cass says. “It helps her swallow.”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you earlier. And she likes her back straight.”

“You said none of that, actually,” Steph says. “You just told us to support her head. Which we have been, thank you very much.”

“You have her now?”

“Robin has her.”

Dick and Jason look at each other. Jason says, “What the fuck?”

“Right?” Steph sounds amused. “I was surprised too....his friend is here, that ginger kid? He’s the one that took her from the orphanage, right?”

“Batgirl, I swear to god, if anything happens to her - ”

“Oh, calm down, jeez,” Steph groans. “They’re being supervised, okay? It’s honestly precious, you would agree with me if you could see it. I’ll text the pictures to N.”

“Please do,” Dick says. Speaking of cute, in a way that’s much safer to think about.

“Go do your job now,” Cass tells them. “We’re handling it.”

“Yeah, what she said. Batgirls out.”

“Feel better?” Dick asks, after a moment.

“Don’t ask me that,” Jason grouses. “And show me those pictures when you get them.”

Dick grins. “Sure, Jay.”

“Ugh.”

Dick decides to change the subject, before Jason gets too antsy and tries to bail. “So how do you want to play this, when Susie shows?”

Jason points to a dumpster halfway down the alley. “We wait until she’s there. I’ll get the club door, put a taser on it to stop her getting back in or anyone else from coming out. You cut her off before she gets to the street, and we question her on the backside of the dumpster. I’ll take line of sight, since I’m packing.”

Dick nods. “So is she.”

“So is every goon in those back rooms, sure. That’s why we lock their asses in.”

“And if they come out the front?”

Jason spins a gun in his hand. “Rubber bullets do the job just fine if you know how to aim. Let me worry about the backup.”

Another thing that’s changed about Jason - or that hasn’t changed, depending on how far back Dick looks. He uses rubber bullets now, whenever he’s working a case with one of them. Supposedly it’s a stipulation from Bruce, but Jason didn’t use lethal force on the couple cases he and Dick worked together, either, back when Dick was wearing the cowl. Dick thinks Bruce just gave him an excuse - whatever bloodlust Jason was fueled by when he first came back to Gotham has long since dried up. There are still things that set him off - Barbara had informed them about a dead rapist in the Narrows just last month - but Bruce hadn’t even commented on it, besides the barest acknowledgment. Dick thinks he might be the only one that actually cares when Jason kills someone, anymore. And what’s really disturbing is that he’s not actually sure how much he cares. For instance, he knows Jason has a third gun, holstered under his jacket, loaded with live ammo. He could call Jason out on it, insist he ditch it or at the very least unload it.

He says nothing. Let me worry about the backup. If this mission ends in a massacre, Dick will only have himself to blame.

The door opens again, and out steps Susie Falcone.

She immediately looks around, staying still in the doorway for a minute or more. Dick is pretty sure she hasn’t seen him following her, but he’s familiar with the sensation of being watched. He and Jason both shrink further into the shadows, waiting for her to make a move.

The whole process takes about six seconds. The moment she gets a few paces into the alley, they drop down. Jason electrifies the door handle, and Dick outmaneuvers her easily, slapping his police-issue cuffs on her and kicking her gun aside, then spinning her into the wall behind the dumpster. She hits it with a grunt. By the time she’s glaring at him, Jason is at his side again.

“Nightwing and Red Hood?” she says. “Damn. Didn’t expect to see you fellas out here.”

She doesn’t seem scared of them. Dick guesses they’ll have backup coming their way soon.

“Hey, what do you know,” Jason says conversationally, picking up the gun and emptying the clip in one swift motion. “Nightwing, I do believe this is our Glock.”

“Not mine,” Susie objects. “Picked it up off the club floor.”

“Come on, Susie, you’re smarter than that.” Jason crosses his arms. “Look, I can appreciate a sensible weapon. The Berettas the rest of your family favors? Too flashy for me. I loved Sopranos as much as the next guy, but come on.”

Dick suppresses a laugh. “Thought you were a Sig man,” he says in an undertone. He hadn’t expected Jason to take the lead, but it’s working. Susie looks agitated at the mention of her family.

“Wow, stalker. Remind me to move safe houses,” Jason quips back. “Aw, look, she slipped your cuffs.”

There’s a taser in Susie’s newly freed hand, and Dick quickly sidesteps it, twists it out of her wrist and sends it clattering down the cobblestones of the alley. Jason sweeps her legs out from under her and knocks her down flat, maybe a little harder than Dick would’ve. Thankfully, she goes down without a fight.

“Let’s try this again,” Dick says, kneeling next to her and zip-tying her wrists. If he wasn’t sure before, he is now - she was expecting them. They won’t be alone for long. He throws a couple smoke pellets down to the ends of the alley, and clips a nearly invisible wireless mic to the shoelaces of her boot under the guise of patting her down.

“You’re obviously not surprised to see us, so just tell us what we want to know,” Jason tells her, squatting down. “I’ll be honest, I don’t really give a shit that you shot Big Mouth, but what did Linda Torres ever do to you?”

“Let me up,” Susie snarls.

“No. Talk, or I’ll give you a taste of that taser you tried to pull on us.”

“Hood,” Dick hisses.

“See? He knows I’ll do it. Save yourself the grief, Susie.” Jason points the barrel of his gun lazily at her temple.

Susie narrows her eyes. “Fine. The two of them robbed me, last September. Dumb motherfuckers didn’t know who they were messing with. But I let them live because the bitch was pregnant.”

Jason makes a noise of disbelief. “Oh, sure. You’re a real bleeding heart, is that it?”

“Like you’re any better,” Susie fires back.

“You said you waited on Linda because she was pregnant,” Dick says. “Why’d you wait to kill Big Mouth?”

Susie’s mouth twists. “Guess I just felt like it.” Dick doesn’t need to see the tension in her shoulders to know she’s lying.

“Strike two.” Jason clicks the safety off. “Who put the hits out?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Susie answers. “I’m dead if I talk, so pistol whip me if you want to. Here’s the God’s honest truth: I really didn’t need a reason to kill those assholes. I was out for ‘em anyways. But I’m not crazy enough to kill a baby, all right? I don’t need shit like that on my conscience.”

“Keep talking,” Jason growls. Dick hears the whoop of a siren a few blocks off. “Where’s the baby now?”

“Somewhere safe, I swear. If anybody comes for her, it won’t be me.”

Susie still thinks Danielle’s at the orphanage, then. That’s good for them, but potentially bad for all the other kids, Colin included. These guys clearly have no problem killing children, even if Susie won’t do it.

The sirens are getting closer. Someone inside must’ve called the cops. Dick motions to Jason, indicating they need to wrap things up.

“Who is coming for her,” Jason barks, every line of his body a threat. “You’ve got five seconds.”

“You don’t.” Susie looks triumphant. They can hear the shouts of police from behind the smoke. “But don’t worry, boys. You’ll find out who really runs this town soon enough.”

“Hood,” Dick mutters. “We need to go, cops in this neighborhood aren’t cape-friendly.”

Jason stands, visibly enraged, and for a moment Dick thinks he’ll shoot Susie anyways. He’s prepared to move - but then Jason pulls out his grapple, fires, and flies up onto the roof.

“Talk about a bleeding heart,” Susie says to Dick. “He have kids or something?”

Dick doesn’t like her tone of voice at all. She’s too relaxed, too unconcerned about being under arrest. She won’t stay in long.

“It’s Nightwing! Get your hands up!”

Dick obliges, ready to pull his escrima sticks.

Three police officers come through the smoke, weapons drawn. “You better have a damn good reason for being this far out of Bludhaven,” one of them shouts at Dick.

“Sure do!” Dick calls back. “Arrested a murderer for you, no need to thank me!”

“Shut up,” a different officer retorts. “Keep your hands up, pretty boy.”

“Oh, fuck this,” Jason mutters over the comm. “I’m throwing you an escape, we’ll recon on the library roof. Stop being so goddamn chatty.”

One smoke pellet later, Dick is three rooftops away and flying. He gets to the library before Jason, exhilarated as ever from a good run.

Jason drops down next to him after a minute or so, laughing when he gets a look at Dick’s smile. “Running from the cops still does it for you, huh?”

Dick elbows him, momentarily forgetting to keep his distance. “Doesn’t it for you?”

Surprisingly, Jason doesn’t move away. “Usually they’re shooting at me, so.”

Dick leans closer, testing. “So…yes?”

“You’re so annoying,” Jason says, but he lets Dick nudge his shoulder, bump their arms together. He’s so solid, Dick thinks. So big. More like Bruce than any of them.

“So, how fast do you think she’ll get out?” he asks, when Jason stays quiet.

“Fucking tomorrow, probably,” Jason sighs. “Next week if we’re lucky.”

“Sounds like she didn’t know about Danielle, at least.”

“She’s not the problem,” Jason says, shrugging Dick off and standing back up. “Falcones will blow up the whole orphanage if they get wind of it. We need to put them down first.”

“We need to find out who’s in charge,” Dick agrees. “I planted a mic on her shoe. In the laces. Hopefully she won’t find it for a few days.”

“Good thinking,” Jason nods. “You gonna keep patrolling?”

“Might as well,” Dick says, standing up next to him and stretching his arms over his head. “I’m still stiff from that stakeout, I need to move.”

Jason’s gone quiet again. Dick thinks he hears his breath catch, but the helmet muffles it enough that it could be a yawn.

“You’re going back to the manor?”

Jason groans. “Fuck my life, yes.”

“You miss her, huh.” Cute, his brain chants.

Jason doesn’t answer, but Dick has a feeling he’s getting the stink-eye.

“I miss her too,” Dick offers. “It’s okay.”

Jason sighs. “Dick…”

“It’s a good thing, Jay. You care about her! We all do,” Dick adds, seeing the rigidity in Jason’s posture. “I mean, you’re practically her parent right now. Of course you miss her.”

“...Don’t say it like that.” Jason’s voice is low, almost pained, and Dick knows he pushed too far. “Like…like I have a right to, okay, just. Don’t.”

“Jason, wait,” Dick starts, but he doesn’t get to finish. Without a backward glance, Jason fires off a line to the neighboring building, and then he’s gone.

***

(tim)

The docks are quiet, unsettlingly so, as Tim prowls around the towers of shipping containers, keeping to the deep shadows they cast along the chipped pavement. It’s overcast, so there’s no moonlight to expose him, but it’s also too dark to see which of the trucks and campers parked all over are occupied, which ones might suddenly turn their headlights on him and catch him out.

One truck in particular - an innocuous looking Isuzu with a stunningly weaponized interior, is the object of his search. The driver, Felipe, is one of Tim’s best informants within Intergang - or had been, prior to the upheaval. Tim’s reasonably sure that Felipe is too lowly a grunt to make an example of, but still, he’s concerned that he hasn’t heard from him in a few days.

As it turns out, he needn’t have worried. He finds Felipe a hundred yard away from his truck, taking a piss off the wharf. He lets himself into the passenger side of the truck, and immediately notes that it is packed. There’s hardly a spare inch in the back, and Tim has a tough time even getting into the passenger seat with all the bags, clothes, and blankets stuffed into it. He pushes the majority of it to the floor, and waits.

Felipe comes back a few moments later. He opens the door and starts, eyes going wide when he sees Tim, but Tim puts his finger to his lips and motions for Felipe to get in so they can talk.

“Red Robin,” Felipe says, once the door is closed. He looks even more shaken than usual. “What the fuck, man?”

Tim crosses his arms. “You tell me, Felipe. You’ve been dodging my calls for days, and now I find out you’re skipping town?”

“I ditched that phone, man. Boss Reynolds had my number in there, you know? Ditched it as soon as I heard about him. I wasn’t trying to ghost you, honest.”

“Relax,” Tim tells him. “I’m not mad. I’d dodge me, too. Just tell me what happened, and I’ll shadow you out of town. Make sure you’re not followed.”

“Shit, man,” Felipe sighs. “Okay, look. There’s shit I can’t tell you, not if I ever want to hench again. You gotta figure that all out yourself, yeah?”

Tim shrugs. “Fine.”

Felipe swallows. “It started last week when Boss Reynolds met with somebody - I don’t know his name, God as my witness, but from what I heard, ‘cause I was unloading some of that funky alien tech, and you know Boss Reynolds wanted to supervise that personally - anyways, this guy in a suit took a meeting with him, and it sounded like he was offering Boss Reynolds a job. Said he had a new operation, bigger than Intergang, bigger than anything Gotham’s seen in a while.”

“Did Reynolds believe him?”

“Nah, he told him to get lost. They had some words, and then everybody started pulling guns, and I went back to the ship so I didn’t get fuckin’ shot, but I didn’t hear anything after that. Next thing I saw, Boss Reynolds was calling his son up and telling him to demo some building down by the old boardwalk - a hotel, maybe. Guess he wanted to expand that way, I don’t know.”

“That was the old Falcone hotel,” Tim says, mostly just to see Felipe’s reaction. He isn’t disappointed - Felipe goes pale, and his eyes flash to the rosary hanging off his rearview mirror. Tim likes Felipe as an informant because he’s nosy, shockingly competent for a henchman, and because he really likes to gossip. He’s never held back on Tim before this.

“Few days later, one of ours, this merc named Tiberius, comes down to the warehouse and says he’s got something to show us. Takes out a fat fuckin’ folder full of pictures…man, it was some sick shit. Boss Reynolds, his wife, Reynolds Jr, and every fuckin’ guy under him. Kids, man. He just passed it around, made everyone look at it. Then he says, we can either be in the folder, or we can come meet the new boss.”

Felipe takes a shaky breath. “Obviously I go with Tiberius, like everyone else. I heard a couple guys stayed on the ship that was docked, thinking they’d wait ‘em out, but the new boss blew it up. Says we’re not in the tech business anymore, and anyone caught trying to smuggle it is gonna get tied to it and tossed in the harbor. You can imagine my concerns,” he says, gesturing to his truck. Tim estimates half or more of the weapons in it are salvaged from alien junk. Roy Harper would have a field day with the setup this guy’s made for himself.

“So that’s why you’re bailing,” Tim says, understanding. He can hardly blame the guy. “Why not just hide the truck somewhere?”

“Well…I did think about that,” Felipe admits. “Tiberius made us a pretty sweet pitch, once we went along with him. Not gonna lie, I was tempted. Tech is my thing, you know, but I can make a gun out of pretty much anything. I could see the possibilities, is what I’m saying, but that was before we met the new boss.”

Tim nods encouragingly. This is what he’s been waiting to hear.

“Listen, Red Robin - I know we’ve had our differences, but I respect you, man, you know that. You’ve been good to me, so I’m gonna give you some advice here. Stay the hell away from the new boss. Like, don’t even get involved. I’ve been henching for a while, and I’ve seen some messed up shit, but they are crazy. Está loca, you feel me? I’ve seen the hit list, and you’re right at the top of it. You and all the other capes. Half of Arkham, too. And they’re connected, like you wouldn’t believe. Shit, I’m already saying too much, man. You see the position I’m in here?”

“I do, Felipe,” Tim tells him. He hands over a stack of hundred dollar bills, their agreed-upon rate for information. “Where are you going?”

“You’re crazy too, if you think I’m telling you that,” Felipe scoffs.

Tim wasn’t expecting a straight answer anyways. “Fair enough. You heading out now?”

“Soon as you get the hell outta my car, yeah. You said you’d shadow me out?”

“I will,” Tim says. “From a distance. If you don’t see me, it means you’re clear to cross the bridge.”

“All right,” Felipe nods. “In that case, I hope I never see your ass again.”

Tim laughs, and climbs out of the truck.

He finds his own way out of the shipyard, pulls a bike out of a safe house, and catches up with Felipe’s GPS signal halfway to the Fashion District. Once he’s sure there’s no immediate threat, he calls Barbara.

“Red Robin to Oracle. I’m uploading a recording to the server.”

Barbara is in his ear at once. “You met with your informant?”

“He wouldn’t give me a name, but he let a couple things slip.”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” she says.

“First, he flinched hard when I brought up the Falcone name.”

“Confirms what we already know,” Barbara says. “Good. There’s more?”

“There’s more.” Tim tries not to gloat. This is, after all, a serious situation. “He was being cagey about mentioning the leader’s gender, so I was already suspicious, but then said ‘está loca’ when he was trying to warn me.”

Barbara whistles. “Well,” she says, sounding satisfied. “That’ll certainly narrow it down.”

“Yep,” Tim says grimly. “Looks like the new head of the Falcone family is a woman.”

***

(jason)

When Jason was Robin, the library had always been his favorite room in the Manor. It had spoken easily to his idea of what wealth was - rich people had fancy cars, sure, and maybe pools and expensive wardrobes, but wealthy people had art collections, and gardens, and libraries. Jason had spent hours upon hours browsing the shelves, reading anything he could wrap his brain around (and plenty of things he couldn’t), suggesting additions to Alfred, and avoiding his schoolwork in favor of learning about more interesting things, like string theory, or cryptology, or chemical warfare.

That was then.

Now, the library is the only place he can get a minute of peace from the constant barrage of his obnoxious, nosy, boundaryless family members. They’ve been characteristically persistent in their curiosity about him, and about Danielle, who is now Dani, courtesy of Stephanie. This is a nickname family, she’d said, and Jason hadn’t known how to disagree. So now she’s Dani, and Jason is family, and that apparently means he is no longer entitled to any privacy, or personal space for that matter. The only person who hasn’t barged in on him is Bruce, which is almost worse, in a way, because it’s one thing when nobody seeks him out, and it’s quite another when everyone does and then Bruce...doesn’t. Not that he wants Bruce to come up and bother him, God. But he’s in the man’s house, he’s hearing him on the comm constantly either on patrol or down in the cave, and all the other Bat brats and even Alfred are buzzing around him like flies. It’s too much - it feels like before, except for Bruce’s conspicuous absence reminding him that it’s not.

Sharing a bathroom with Dick is another before experience that Jason didn’t need a repeat of. In some ways, it was worse when he was Robin - stripping and showering after patrol in the cave with Dick a few feet away from him is a memory he really wouldn’t have minded leaving back in the Pit - and in other ways, it’s worse now, because Dick is always freaking around. There’s no reprieve, he’s not flitting off to the Titans every week like he used to be. Jason hasn’t gone half a day without Dick getting in his space, drawing up close to him and making that earnest eye contact he’s so annoyingly good at; sometimes wet, sometimes half-naked, sometimes both. And what can Jason do? He’s not going to leave Dani, and he needs Dick to be there so he can get some sleep every once in a while, or patrol, or shower. It’s actually been pretty helpful to have him around, in that regard, but if he has to see the guy walking around with bedhead and nothing but a pair of boxer briefs on one more time, he’s going to fucking explode.

So, the library has its benefits: no harassment from over-familiar family members, no Dick sexually frustrating him within an inch of his life, and, if he’s willing to be a little sentimental, he kind of does want to show it to Dani. She’s too young to appreciate it, probably, but it stirs something in him to share it with her all the same. He’s heard it’s never too early to get kids into reading - his parents sure as hell never tried, but Jason had read anything he could get his hands on, once he learned how. It had saved him, back then. Maybe it can do the same for Dani one day.

“Could’ve sworn Bruce had a Dr. Seuss anthology somewhere in here,” he says to her, combing over the shelves with his eyes. “Guess not. You up for something more sophisticated?”

She grunts, squeezing his shirt in her fist. “Alright,” he agrees, pulling Twelfth Night off the shelf. “Shakespeare it is. You’ve got taste, kid.”

He wonders, not for the first time, what exactly he thinks he’s doing, playing at this whole parenting thing. The rational part of his brain knows that this is a case, that Dani is a victim, that Jason is protecting her because it’s his job. The emotional part of his brain has gone completely off the goddamn rails. Case in point: he’s here with her in the library, prepping her for early literacy like some kind of Crest Hill soccer mom wannabe. Like he’ll even be in her life when she starts doing her ABCs - God willing, she’ll be as far away from him as possible by the time that happens.

It’s fucking hard to think about. He never thought he’d get this attached to a person who can’t even burp on their own. It’s been over a week, and he still struggles with putting her down, with stepping away from her, even when he knows he’s coming right back. Steph and Damian have been wanting to hold her all the time, and Jason knows that they’re capable, knows he has no claim over Dani, doesn’t even mind either of them all that much under normal circumstances, and still, he can’t help feeling like something has reached inside and gripped at his heart every time he passes her over. Which is ridiculous, because she’s not his, he has no more claim over her than any other schmuck off the street. She’s just a kid with unbelievably bad luck, and he’s the idiot who followed Dick up the stairs instead of booking it out the door like a sensible person.

He settles down with her on the couch, propping her up on a couple of pillows, giving her foot a little squeeze. She squeals, smiling at him, and stuffs her fingers in her mouth. God, Jason didn’t know he could feel the way he feels whenever she smiles at him. It’s gonna kill him when he has to give her up.

“If music be the food of love, play on,” he reads, walking his fingers up her leg. “Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die.”

Dani watches him, chewing happily on her fingers. “‘O, it came over my ear like the sweet sound that breathes upon a bank of violets.’ That’s you, you know.” He pokes her in the cheek, grinning. If music be the food of love…but hell, he doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of this. Especially when she’s all calm and engaging, the precious few minutes that he’s learned to appreciate in between finishing eating and being tired and cranky, when all she wants to do is look around at things, and all Jason wants to do, ever, is look at her.

The door to the library opens, and Jason goes from content to murderous in a fraction of a second. “What the fuck is it now,” he hisses, expecting Damian or maybe Tim, coming to nag him some more, and instead sees Damian’s friend Colin, who looks horrified to have intruded on him. Jason immediately feels like the world’s biggest ass.

“Sorry,” Colin whispers, mortified, and Jason waves a hand apologetically.

“My bad, I didn’t know it was you. Come in, it’s fine. She’s awake, you don’t need to whisper.”

Colin looks unsure, but soon nods and steps into the library, shutting the door firmly behind him.

Once inside, he dawdles by the nearest bookshelf, clearly at a loss. Jason probably should’ve just let him back out, because this is awkward. Should he keep reading to Dani? Talk to Colin? Ask him why he looks like someone just kicked him and stole his dog?

“You good?” he ventures, figuring he ought to at least attempt to be the adult in the room.

Colin glances at him over his shoulder, smiling tentatively. “Yeah, just bored. Damian’s sleeping, we had a rough patrol last night.”

“We?” Jason repeats, stunned. Bruce isn’t an exemplar of child welfare practices, sure, but letting Damian take other kids on crime-busting playdates? What the hell?

“Oh, I guess you don’t know,” Colin frowns. “I’m….uh, it’s probably easier if I just show you.”

He slides his jacket off, threadbare t-shirt hanging off his skinny frame. Jason tenses, not sure what to expect. When Colin’s arm starts to expand, his eyes widen. By the time his fist is as big around as Jason’s thigh, he thinks his eyebrows have probably disappeared into his hairline.

“Oh.” Jason has no idea how he’s supposed to react to this. Is Colin a meta? He’s pretty sure he would know if Colin was a meta. “How…?”

“Scarecrow,” Colin explains. Jason’s heart sinks. “He experimented on me with synthetic Venom. Batman saved me.”

Dani fusses, twisting her body and scrunching her face up. Jason sympathizes - this conversation is giving him gas, too. “Shit,” he says. Not the most articulate way of expressing his condolences, but Colin’s friends with Damian, so tact can’t be of great importance to him. “I didn’t know.”

Dani starts to cry, and Colin takes a couple steps forward, putting Jason’s hackles up at once. Stop it, he tells himself sternly. He might have fallen down a few pegs, but he’s not pathetic enough to square up against an abused fifth grader. He picks her up, rubbing her back, and then glances over at Colin. The kid’s gone shy, looking down at a point somewhere between Jason’s legs and the floor. Jason feels all the hostility bleed out of him, and he sighs.

“You can sit down.” He gestures to the couch, trying to sound nonthreatening. Dani burps, mouths at his shirt, and then gurgles and kicks her legs again. She leans back against his hold to stare at Colin, and Colin’s face splits into a huge grin. He tucks himself down into the cushions, keeping plenty of space between them, but Jason can sense from the inclination of his body that he wants to be closer. Well, if anyone has a right to be close to Dani, it’s the kid who rescued her in the first place.

“Here,” he offers, turning Dani around in his arms. His heart clenches, and he clamps down on his desire to flee. “You can hold her for a minute, if you want to. She likes you.”

Colin looks at him, eyes shining. “Really?”

Jason nods. “Go ahead. Honestly, you probably know a lot more about this shit than I do.”

Colin takes Dani from him carefully, smiling at her and laughing when she reaches forward to grab at his jacket zipper. A few seconds later, it’s in her mouth, along with most of her fist.

“Should I…?” Colin looks at Jason hesitantly.

“I mean…she’s had worse things in her mouth,” Jason tells him. A ringing endorsement of his child-minding abilities right there. “It’s fine, right? That’s how they build an immune system, or whatever.”

“Well, Alfred washed this for me last night,” Colin admits, looking embarrassed. “So it shouldn’t be too gross.”

Jason leans back against the couch cushions, crossing his arms. “Getting all the perks, huh?”

Colin shrugs, casting his eyes down again. “I like it here.”

Considering where Colin grew up, Jason supposes he can’t blame the kid. Still, he’s not quite wrapping his head around this sweet, genuinely nice kid being buddies with Damian. The demon brat isn’t exactly known for his winning personality, and Jason only knows vaguely how the two of them met, but what he’s heard doesn’t strike him as being particularly conducive to forging the lasting bonds of friendship.

Curiosity gets the better of him, and he decides to just ask. “Why’d you call Damian, the night you found her?”

Colin looks surprised. “I...don’t know,” he says, slowly. “I didn’t know who else to call? Damian’s my best friend, and he always knows what to do.”

Jason can’t keep the skeptical look off his face.

“And if he doesn’t, Bat….Bruce, I mean, definitely always knows what to do.”

Jason scrubs a hand over his face. Time to change the fucking subject. “How’d you two get hooked up, anyways?”

Dani turns her head to look at him, still eating Colin’s zipper. Sometimes, Jason gets the bizarre feeling that she can somehow tell when he’s about to blow a gasket. It’s probably a coincidence - she moves around a lot, and Jason has anger issues that flare up every ten minutes, so there’s bound to be some crossover - but it works, because it takes the fight right out of him every time.

“We worked a case together,” Colin says, holding Dani a little more securely against him. “About a year ago, I guess. Kids were disappearing from my orphanage, and from the shelters. I don’t think you were around.”

“I wasn’t,” Jason shakes his head. He and Roy had been busting a trafficking ring in Ibiza, and it had taken Jason over a month to get all the major players. “I heard about it a little, from Dick.”

Dick hadn’t given him too many details at the time - Jason had chalked it up to him having a few other things on his mind, but as Colin fills in the gaps, he starts to suspect Dick just didn’t want him going on a rampage. Which he absolutely would have - he still wants to, God. God. All those poor kids, just a stone’s throw from his old neighborhood. And of course the police had done jack shit - Zsasz is practically Black Mask’s pet, he probably paid them off to look the other way, not that most of them need the excuse - and Bruce was gone, and Jason was gone, and Dick was in over his head, and - fuck, it should never have fallen to Damian and Colin.

He waits for the fury to subside a little, not trusting what will come out of his mouth. Dani hums around her fist, blinking at him, and it helps. “Jesus,” he says, finally. “This fucking town.”

Colin’s mouth twists a little. “Yeah. But you were Robin, right? You probably saw worse things.”

Did he? Jason doesn’t remember. He doubts it, though. He can’t imagine he would’ve been satisfied with Bruce’s way of dealing with it.

“I wouldn’t have pulled my stroke, when I was Robin,” he muses. “Probably why Bruce never gave me a sword.”

No, Jason would’ve bisected the fucker. It still has appeal, though he thinks he would lean towards his favorite Sig rifle if he was taking care of it today. Headshots for the henchmen - anyone who signs on to that kind of operation, even in the most menial capacity, doesn’t deserve to breathe. Kneecaps and crotch shots for the spectators, to make sure they couldn’t get away. Gut shots for the kid-wranglers. And Zsasz....it’s tempting to want to draw it out, but Jason can feel the desire leaving him the longer he thinks about it. His imaginative tortures fade into a simple headshot, and even that isn’t satisfying. Fuck. He just can’t seem to hold onto his rage lately, even when he wants to. It’s all being replaced by some kind of anxiety, some kind of tenderness that aches, burning deep into him every time Dani looks at him, or touches him. Every time he thinks of her. Every time he feels Dick watching him with her, all warmth and affection.

Colin bounces her a little, making her laugh. Jason feels his revenge fantasy slip away.

“What’re you reading her?” Colin nods to the book still laying open in Jason’s lap.

Jason looks at it. “Oh, Twelfth Night. Shakespeare,” he adds, recalling that Colin is eleven, and likely not perusing great literature in his free time. “Figure it’s never too early to start her on the classics.”

Colin grins. “That’s cool,” he says. “Does she like it?”

“Beats me,” Jason shrugs.

“Read some?”

Jason raises his eyebrows.

Colin flushes. “Um. I mean, if you want…”

He decides to humor him. What the hell. “Sure, why not. ‘O spirit of love! How quick and fresh art thou, that, notwithstanding in thy capacity, receiveth as the sea.’”

Dani yawns widely, relinquishing her fist in a long string of drool. Jason laughs, and so does Colin. “Maybe jumping the gun a little,” he admits. “I don’t really know what kids are into these days.”

“Me either,” Colin says. “I think she liked it, though. See, she’s just sleepy.”

Jason feels a lump forming in his throat, and swallows hard against it.

“What does it mean? The part you were reading,” Colin asks.

“Um.” Jason doesn’t really know, he’s not exactly a literary scholar, but he’s always liked to work Shakespeare out on his own, finding meaning in the wordplay and running the metaphors through his mind until they line up in a satisfactory way. He doesn’t know if his interpretation is correct, exactly, but: “So this Duke, a guy called Orsino, is saying that he doesn’t want to be in love anymore. He’s talking about love and how everyone thinks it’s this wonderful thing, but the truth is that it actually just makes people miserable.”

Jason pauses, feeling like he just showed way too much of his hand. “Basically, he’s just complaining,” he finishes, uneasy.

Glancing at Colin out of the corner of his eye, he’s relieved to see that he’s occupied with Dani, and not paying attention to Jason at all. Thank fuck. If it’d been anyone else in the house sitting there, he’d be in for some horrible armchair psychology session, and he’d have to book it out the window and not return for several months.

“I think she wants you,” Colin says, as Dani ramps up her fussing. Jason takes her gratefully, holds her to his chest as she rubs her eyes and grumbles her displeasure at being passed around.

“All right, I hear you,” Jason murmurs, gently tugging her fists away from her eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic, come on. It’s not so bad.” Like he’s one to talk.

And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, ever since pursue me, he thinks, rocking her tiny body into a comfortable position. Colin was only holding her for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and Jason was sitting less than five feet away, but he missed her. God, what is happening to him?

“Damian didn’t want to bring her here, at first,” Colin says quietly. “But I think he’s glad that we did. He really likes her, you know.”

Jason doesn’t quite know how to feel about that. It’s sweet, on some level. And he’s well aware that Damian likes her, going by the amount of time he spends hovering in the hallway outside Jason’s room, not to mention the increasingly expensive toys that keep showing up among her things.

He looks down at her, dozing off. “Well, she’s pretty easy to like.”

Colin nods, looking pleased.

“Damian, on the other hand....”

Colin grins. “He’s not so bad.”

He’s really not. Like hell Jason will ever tell him that, though. “You have bizarre taste, kid.”

Colin blushes, hard, and Jason blinks. Well. That’s interesting, isn’t it? Or it will be, in a few years. He makes a note to ask Dick about it, later.

“Are you gonna adopt her?” Colin asks, bringing Jason’s amused thoughts to a screeching halt.

Automatically, he says, “No way.”

Colin looks wounded. “Why not?”

“Because I can’t,” Jason replies. “I’m the last person who should be a parent, trust me.”

“Doesn’t look that way to me.”

Doesn’t feel that way either - the thought floats up, unbidden, uninvited. He can’t. “She deserves better,” Jason says, heavily. “Even if….even I could handle it. She deserves better than this family.”

“But your family is - ”

“A death sentence.” He’s being harsh, but if Colin’s gonna be hanging around, he’ll find out for himself soon enough. “It’s fucking cursed, look. I couldn’t do that to any kid, especially her. You should get out too, while you still can.”

Colin looks angry, which surprises him. His hands are balled into fists, and Jason sees a tremor in them, a bulging that immediately sets off alarm bells in his head.

“Kid,” he says sharply. “Colin. If you’re gonna hulk out, take it outside. Alfred will have an honest-to-God stroke if you do it in here.”

A few deep breaths later, Colin looks normal again. “Sorry.” His voice is hoarse. “You’re wrong, though.”

Jason’s temper flares. “No offense, but I think I would know better than you,” he snaps. Dani grumbles sleepily in his arms, and he sighs out in frustration. “Trust me, okay? She’s better off. It never ends well, not in this family. I’m proof of that.”

But Colin shakes his head. “You don��t know,” he says. “My mom said the same thing, when she dropped me off at the orphanage. She gave the nuns a letter - she said I’d be better off with them than with her.”

Jason stills.

“It didn’t matter,” Colin continues. “Scarecrow still got me. Victor Zsasz still got me. Maybe they would have gotten me with her, too. Maybe I wouldn’t have been that much better off with her, but at least I would’ve been with her.” He sniffles, and Jason holds Dani a little tighter.

“I know she loved me.” His voice cracks. “I just wish...I wish I could’ve stayed with her. I wish she would have known that I never would’ve been better off away from her.”

He looks absolutely miserable, pitched forward and rubbing hard at his eyes. Jason is reminded painfully of how young Colin is, closer to Dani’s age than his own. He remembers being Colin’s age and younger, thinking the same thoughts about his own mother. How fiercely he’d guarded her, chased away the cops and the social workers, doing everything in his power not to be separated from her. Not that it mattered, in the end.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “Colin, I’m sorry. For the record, I actually kind of get where you’re coming from.”

Colin looks up at him.

“Wish I didn’t, but. That’s life.”

“You should adopt her,” Colin says again, softly.

Jason shakes his head. “Colin…”

“You’ll think about it.”

He exhales. “Sure, I’ll think about it.” Like he’ll be able to think about anything else after this.

“She needs you,” Colin insists stubbornly.

Jason doesn’t reply. He knows on some level Colin is right - Dani does need him right now. She needs someone, at least, someone who can take care of her and protect her. Someone who isn’t afraid to shed blood to keep her safe. Jason doesn’t relish the thought, but he’s certain this won’t end tidily. Mob cases never do. It’ll be messy, and bloody, and Bruce will have a shit fit, and Dick probably will too, and Jason will go back to Crime Alley and Dani will get shipped off to Witness Protection or something, and damn, does that hurt to think about.

He looks over at Colin, still hunched over on himself, vulnerability written into every line of his posture. He’s desperately in need of a hug, or some kind of affection, validation, maybe. Or that’s just Jason projecting, who the fuck knows. If Dick was here, he would know exactly what to do for him. Jason’s at a loss, unable to separate his young self from the damaged kid sitting next to him.

He adjusts his hold on Dani carefully, laying her down flat along his arm, while he works out what to say. Finally, he settles on, “Damian’s lucky to have you.”

Colin sits up a little straighter. He looks like he’s waiting for more, but he’s shit out of luck, because Jason has no idea what else he needs to hear. No idea what he could say that wouldn’t be completely insincere, anyways. We can be your family, Colin. Like hell. Bruce has enough kids lined up waiting to die for him, he’s not about to encourage another one to be turned into cannon fodder for the man’s principles.

“Uh, yeah,” Jason says, after a moment. “That’s all I got.”

Colin smiles wanly. “Thanks, anyways.”

Jason snorts. “Sure.”

“Can I hug you?”

Jason stares. “Can you…what? Me?”

“I won’t if you don’t want me to,” Colin adds, averting his eyes.

Jason can’t even remember the last time someone hugged him. He thinks Roy might’ve, some eight or nine months ago, after they’d narrowly survived a warehouse explosion. Jason’s whole body had been ringing from the blast, so he doesn’t exactly remember the sensation of it. And before that…?

He imagines Dick’s reaction, if he was here. He’d be disappointed in Jason, that’s for sure. Really, Jay? You can’t hug a child? It’s a fair argument, he has to admit. Jason’s fucked up personal space issues don’t really apply to children, or babies, clearly. Colin’s obviously attention-starved, and Jason’s already holding one kid. What’s another, really.

“Okay,” he relents. “Hit me.”

There’s a shuffling motion next to him, and then Colin is hugging his free arm, leaning his head against Jason’s shoulder. Jason can’t quite contain his surprise - it’s weird, as expected, but it’s not dramatically increasing his desire to bolt through the nearest exit like he’d thought it would. It’s a little funny, actually. He’s pretty sure both Bruce and Damian would lose their shit if they could see him right now. Dick, too, most likely, but to his credit, it would be a happy kind of shit-losing. Damian would probably try to gut him.

Are there cameras in the library? Jason can’t remember. He kind of hopes there aren’t, because if anyone else sees this, he will absolutely never live it down.

***

(dick)

“Wait, I think that’s him.” Dick leans forward to peer at Tim’s screen. He points to the familiar looking figure. “That guy. Do you have a clearer shot?”

Tim skips a few photos ahead, and zooms in. “Him?”

“Yes. That’s the guy. Jason said he recognized him from your surveillance files. He was at the club the night we caught Susie Falcone.”

“The fourth night, was it?” Tim asks, innocently.

“Don’t be mean, Timmy.”

“Just clarifying,” Tim grins. Dick raises an eyebrow. “Okay, okay. I don’t have a ton of intel on this guy, he’s really slippery. According to my informant, he goes by Tiberius - some kind of mercenary, Greek or Albanian national. I doubt that’s his real name.”

Dick nods, studying the photographs. Tim continues, “He came over with Intergang as an enforcer, I think. Might’ve been Reynolds’ personal bodyguard.”

“Could explain how Reynolds got taken out,” Dick says thoughtfully. “He’s on the Falcones’ payroll now, but he’s not family. Might be an easy target.”

Tim opens his mouth, about to reply, when there’s a choked-off sound of fury from the Batcave below them.

“Was that Damian? He’s up already?” Dick asks, glancing down towards Bruce’s computer. He hops over the ramp to see what the fuss is about. Tim follows close behind.

“Everything okay?” Dick asks, approaching the wall of screens. There’s nothing that jumps out at him as being particularly alarming; Bruce is looking at DNA analyses, and Damian is looking at the Manor surveillance, tapping furiously at his ear.

“Todd!” he hisses. “What do you think you’re doing? Colin is my friend!”

“Robin,” Oracle’s voice comes through the speaker. “No names on the comms. And Hood isn’t wearing his earpiece, so you’ll have to tell him in person.” She sounds amused. “Oracle out.”

Damian swears.

“Holy shit,” Tim says faintly. “Look at them.”

The screen that all the Manor surveillance feeds run to is showing just one room - the library, of all places, but Dick vaguely recalls it being some kind of sanctuary to Jason, years and years ago. It makes sense that he’d end up back there, and it makes sense that he’d have Dani with him. What Dick doesn’t expect to see is little Colin Wilkes, all five feet and change of him, snuggled up to Jason’s side and hugging him, wrapped around his arm like a gangly koala. Dick can’t help but notice that Jason’s bicep is about as big around as Colin’s head, which is certainly...something. He’s not quite ready to classify how he feels about that, so he refocuses on the hug itself, which is nothing short of charming.

Damian grinds his teeth audibly. “It’s still going.”

“Oh, man.” Dick can’t help the grin he feels creeping up the sides of his face. “Bruce, are you seeing this?”

“I am,” Bruce says, stiffly. He looks like he’s in pain. Dick fights the urge to roll his eyes.

“What’s wrong with you? Look how sweet they are!” he exclaims, gesturing. It’s adorable.

“It is not sweet,” Damian snarls, whirling on him. “Todd is a corruptive influence, and Colin is young and impressionable! Where is your concern for him?”

Tim coughs, and it sounds a little bit like “jealous”. Surprisingly, this does not diffuse Damian’s indignation.

“I don’t get it,” Dick says, stepping between them quickly to block Damian’s spinning kick. “I thought you and Jason were fine, Damian. You’ve been spending enough time in our - in his room lately. Where’s this coming from?”

“Incredibly, I don’t feel as concerned about Todd recruiting an infant onto the path of lawlessness,” Damian retorts. “Colin lacks paternal guidance in his life, as you know. Todd clearly senses it.”

“Jason is very paternal these days,” Tim agrees.

“I’m pretty sure it’s just a hug,” Dick says in exasperation. “No one’s recruiting anyone, Damian. And look, it’s over. Your friend is just a hugger, that’s all.”

“I must agree with Master Richard,” Alfred says from behind them. “Having been the recipient of many such embraces from young Master Colin myself.”

“See? I’ve gotten hugs from him too,” Dick tells Damian. “And I know you have, so don’t bother denying it. He’s probably gearing up the courage to get one from Bruce one of these days.”

Bruce looks slightly alarmed by the prospect. “He is?”

Damian looks conflicted. “He is?”

Dick casts his eyes heavenward. “Colin, I’m so sorry.”

Before he can say anything else, the Cave door opens below them, and Duke’s bike comes shooting in, whipping around into its parking spot in a move that would send Dick flying over the handlebars. Bruce takes about half a second to look impressed, and then clears the main screen to pull up their intel on the Falcone case.

“What’s up, guys,” Duke calls, pulling off his helmet and jogging up the steps. “I’ve got news. Where’s Jason?”

“Being hugged, in the library,” Dick tells him. “You just missed it.”

Duke looks nonplussed. “Damn. Wait, that’s not some kind of weird euphemism, is it? If it is, I don’t want to know.”

“It most certainly is not,” Damian says venomously.

“Cool. I tried to get him on the comm, but he didn’t respond. Should I go get him? He’ll want to hear this.”

“Damian will get him,” Bruce says.

Damian is…already on the elevator. Dick spares a thought for Jason. At least he’s holding Dani, so Damian won’t attack him outright.

“Your news?” Bruce prompts.

“Right,” Duke nods. “I’ve been all over City Hall records, and spent yesterday afternoon getting intel in the East End. I’ve got names and faces of most of the major players in this. They’re trying hard to front some distant nephew of Carmine Falcone as the head of the whole operation, but it wasn’t quite adding up. You said the new Falcone boss is a woman, right?” he asks Tim.

Tim nods affirmatively.

Duke looks triumphant. “Then I know who she is.”

***

#jaydick #in which there is so much plot all to justify the existence of 1 baby #low key this fic is my maternal love letter to colin wilkes #i miss him dc bring him back #my fics #heartlandverse

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365daysofsasuhina · 4 years

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[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Three Hundred Forty-One: A Cave ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata, Uchiha Itachi, Uchiha Shisui, Hyūga Neji, Hyūga Hanabi ] [ SasuHina, death ] [ Verse: Then It All Went Wrong ] [ AO3 Link ]

They’ve been running for hours.

The fires of the Uchiha compound are long behind them, running atop the surface of the Naka northward. Sasuke still clings to his brother’s back, Hinata atop Shisui’s as Hanabi is slung to his chest. Neji, despite his youth, has little choice but to run.

It all still feels...unreal.

The only two among them truly privy to the goings-on are Itachi and Shisui, both aware of the Uchiha clan’s struggles against Konoha. Since the Kyūbi’s attack only a few months after Sasuke’s birth, the old prejudices against them - fanned by their prior leader - were flared once again. Surveillance was increased, their rights subtly squeezed and redacted...and when they protested, it only got worse.

Fugaku’s months of attempts of compromises were all in vain. No matter his offers, his pleads, he was ignored. So, he went to the only person he felt he had left to ask for aid:

Hyūga Hiashi, the clan head of the other dōjutsu line of Konoha, and a distant brother.

Of course, Hiashi had balked at first, not wanting to be dragged into such an affair. But Fugaku had leverage. Their common roots, and the need for a scapegoat meant that it just might be the Hyūga next once the Uchiha were...removed. All he wanted was support - an ally to help him appeal to Konoha...and stand with them should the village strike.

And strike it did.

The battle had broken out at both compounds with perfect synchronicity, cutting the allied clans off from one another as they each fought their own battles. They had expected as much...but only barely. Plans to send the heirs and their seconds - the siblings, and their first cousins - to safety had been one of the first plans Hiashi and Fugaku made, both wanting to ensure the survival of their children and blood.

But the addendum to have adults accompany them fell through. The Hyūgas’ handmaid had been killed while ushering them out, buying them time to escape to their meeting place by the Naka. And Shisui’s mother - Mikoto’s sister - made a similar sacrifice.

Now six children face the wilderness alone, unsure if they’re yet being pursued by the place they once called home: the eldest fifteen, and the youngest not even yet two.

But Shisui is a tokubetsu jōnin, and Itachi an ANBU officer. Between the two of them, they’re certain they can keep the younger ones safe...so long as they aren’t met with a force too numerous.

What they need now, however, is a place to hide, and to rest.

“Any ideas?” Itachi asks as they run, giving his cousin a glance.

“Not particularly...they probably figure we’re following the river. It’ll make tracking us by foot impossible, and by scent difficult. We can’t really stray from it for that reason...but if we’re going to stop, that means getting off the water...and leaving a trail.”

“Even if we take the trees…?”

“Our scents will linger better. But after being up all day and now running half the night with additional weight...you and I need to rest. And the kids, too.”

Itachi can’t help but feel a bit of irony at the separation between them and the ‘kids’.

He and Shisui can’t be kids anymore.

...they haven’t really been for quite some time.

“Aniki…” Sasuke murmurs. “I’m tired…”

“...I know,” he replies through grit teeth, trying to think of a solution. They’re still over a day’s trek from the place Fugaku marked on their map...they have to stop before they get there. Even if they were going on a full night’s sleep, it’d be pushing it.

“Hey, Itachi…”

“Yes?”

“How’s your geographical genjutsu?”

The younger cousin blinks. “...why do you ask?”

“There’s a cave, up ahead. Maybe we can cast an illusion to hide the opening.”

Following Shisui’s gaze, Itachi brightens. There’s just a hint of a crack in the cliff that lines the Naka to their right. “...I can handle that.”

“Good. Let’s see if it’s worth it…” Veering, Shisui approaches, a hand feeling the rock. A hint of flame is blown into a hand, chakra sustaining it over his palm and lighting the space within.

“...what do you see?”

“This should work. It’s a tight fit to get in, but there’s a chamber...eh, ten paces wide? Enough to rest, anyway. We’ll have to get cozy, but it should work.”

“Very well.”

They pack the four younger children in, all of them looking to the pair with fear and uncertainty in their eyes.

“...all right. You all stay here. Don’t make any noise if you can help it. I know the baby’s gonna be fussy, but just...try your best. We’ll go scout and see if we can find some food. And a way to get water,” Shisui offers, half thinking aloud.

The elder three all nod solemnly, Hinata doing her best to keep her baby sister quiet.

Once back outside, Shisui sighs. “...all right...I’ll head back south a little ways, start looking for any signs we’re being followed. You stay here, start working on supplies. We all need to eat and rehydrate...and sleep, if we’re able. If I see anything, I’ll send a crow. Be ready.”

“Of course.” With that, Itachi turns to the cave entrance. Dark eyes flare red, and the sight seems to blur and stretch...until it’s nothing but a solid wall.

“Perfect. You and I can see through it, of course...but I doubt anyone else can, unless they have a damn good sensor with them. Don’t stray far - I’ll come back in an hour if nothing shows up.”

Itachi just nods, watching his cousin flicker away. Mind forced into a mission state, he begins doing as ordered. A stick sharpened with a kunai manages to spear several fish, which he cooks quickly and without smoke with some katon. Water he brings into a canteen, using what he knows of suiton to filter out any bacteria or microbes. When a pause reveals no crows in the sky, he retreats into the cave.

To his surprise, the four are closely huddled together. Neji seems to lean against Hinata protectively, Byakugan active as he too scouts for danger in his own way. He stares at Itachi, unblinking. Sasuke is on Hinata’s other side, looking a bit less familiar, but close nonetheless.

“Here...eat these,” Itachi offers, handing them the skewered fish. “Be mindful of bones.”

“W-what about Hanabi?” Hinata questions quietly.

“I’ll mash some, see if we can get her to eat it...do you know her diet?”

The elder sister shakes her head. “N...no.”

“That’s all right.” By now, he’s also forgotten what Sasuke could and would eat at that age. They’ll just have to make due. Eating his own catch, he then uses his hands to carefully debone and soften a few pieces of fish. “Here...best you try. She might fuss with a stranger.”

Hinata nods, accepting the food and trying to get her sister to eat. “Hanabi...please…”

Jaw clenched with a whine, the girl makes to refuse. “Nn!”

“Try miming eating it first. She might want to mimic you.” He remembers his mother doing something similar.

Listening, Hinata then tries again. “Mm,” she hums, mocking eating. “This is r-really good!”

Hanabi’s expression wavers, then shifts to a pout. “Ah, ah…!” Little hands reach, and Hinata offers it again. This time she takes some into her mouth, moving it around and managing to swallow some.

They all sigh in relief. “Here...some water, too,” he offers, watching them pass the canteen around.

“Aniki, where are we going…?” Sasuke then asks.

“...I don’t know. Someplace our father thought suitable. North, in the mountains.”

“An Uchiha outpost…?”

“It’s possible…?” Itachi knows most of their clan’s history, and he doesn’t remember such a fort. But maybe he missed something.

“Coming in!”

Glancing up, Itachi watches as Shisui fades through the illusion. “Anything?”

“Not yet...but best we take turns guarding.”

“Agreed.” He hands Shisui some food, which the elder gratefully accepts.

“How are things here?”

“We got the baby to eat a bit. The rest of us are doing the same.”

“Good...you mind taking first watch?”

“Not at all. I’m not too tired.” His body is weary, but his mind still sharp.

“Thanks...packing two kiddos is a bit much, honestly. Especially at that pace.”

“I agree. Don’t worry - I’ll keep watch.”

Once all the food is gone, water drank, and those needing it relieved outside, they arrange themselves for the remainder of the night. Shisui props himself next to Sasuke, still beside Hinata with Neji on her other flank.

“How you holding up, Sasuke?”

He doesn’t really reply.

In truth, Shisui hardly expects him to be well. Their entire clan is likely dead by now, or if any survived, scattered to the four winds...as the Hyūga will also be. It’s not easy...and it’s only his current object that keeps him grounded. “...it’s gonna be all right. We’re still alive. I know it isn’t easy...it hurts. But the important thing is now that we keep moving. We can’t let what our parents gave up for us be for nothing...okay?”

Tearing up a bit, Sasuke manages a nod, looking up to his brother. Itachi stares through the illusion with his Sharingan, a kunai kept gripped in one hand.

“...are they dead, Shisui?”

“...I don’t know for sure, Sasuke. Maybe some got out. We might never know, but...we can hope. For now...we have our mission your father gave us. And all good shinobi follow the mission, right?”

“...right.”

“...we’ll be okay. Maybe not today, or tomorrow...but we will. All of us. For now...we rely on each other. Keep each other safe. Got it?”

All three conscious kids nod, Hanabi thankfully asleep.

“T...thank you, Shisui-san,” Hinata murmurs.

“No need for honorifics, Hinata-chan. We’re all in this together. We’re all equal and familiar now, right?”

“...right…”

Smiling wearily, Shisui then sighs, doing his best to settle down and get some rest.

Watching him for a moment, Sasuke then glances to his other neighbor. “...Hinata-chan…?”

“Yeah?”

“...I’m scared.”

“Me...me too. But...Neji-nīsan, and Shisui-san, a-and Itachi-san will protect us. Right?”

“...yeah…”

Seeing him look unsure, Hinata wriggles one hand free from her sister, offering it palm-up.

After a pause, Sasuke gently takes it with one of his own.

“...w-we aren’t alone, Sasuke-kun. At least...a-at least we have each other, ne?”

“...yeah.”

.oOo.

(This is a sequel to day 99!) ...I think this is the longest gap between updates so far xD Over 200 days since the first 'part' of this was published, holy smokes! And I still ADORE this concept. This is...a little rushed, what with it being a daily (and me being sick and a holiday tomorrow, woo). But I like the overall idea a lot, and I think it's one I'll revamp / continue after the challenge (and my break lol). I just...really love these kiddos, and this AU! They're arguably all among my top ten characters, so getting to write them all together is neat, and the setting and plot is one I'm really liking. So here's hoping making it a fuller fic will work! I have a few ideas already, ahaha~ BUT for now...it's very late, I'm very tired, and tomorrow will be a VERY long day. So I'll call it here. Thanks for reading!

#sasuhina #uchiha sasuke #hyūga hinata #uchiha itachi #uchiha shisui #hyūga neji #hyūga hanabi #death //#then it all went wrong [ canon verse ]#365daysofsasuhina

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